He left the suite and walked along the corridor, making a right turn at the end. When he reached the head of CID’s office, he saw that the door was ajar. He walked in, through the outer area to the room beyond. Mario McGuire was leaning back in the swivel chair, his feet on the desk, reading a copy of Scotland on Sunday. He glanced across at McIlhenney as he entered. ‘Where’s the coffee, then?’ he asked.
‘Fuck off.’
‘That’s insubordination, Superintendent. Is that how it’s going to be from now on?’
‘More or less.’
‘Been clearing your desk?’
‘That and introducing Dottie to Alice. Been filling yours up?’
‘I’ve brought nothing to put in it: I don’t go for too much personal stuff in the office.’
McIlhenney pointed towards the newspaper. ‘What do you think of that?’
‘The E-fit? Tell me it’s the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and I’ll believe you. It looks just like a hundred others we’ve seen: PR to make the punters think we’re on the case. I wonder how many calls they’ve had.’
‘There’s one good way to find out.’
‘Surprise visit to the investigation?’
McIlhenney grinned. ‘Exactly.’
‘Just what I was thinking. Come on: we’ll take my car.’ McGuire folded the newspaper and stood up. ‘Did you read the story?’ he asked, as he closed the outer office door behind him.
‘I read the Sunday Herald version, but I guess it’s much the same.’
‘Did anything strike you about it?’
‘The quote was from Ray Wilding, not Mackenzie; that’s unusually self-effacing for the Bandit.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. He’s just moved into a new patch: he should be taking every chance he gets to make his name.’
‘I’ll have a word with him.’
‘Do that: you know him better than I do. Plus, you’re his line manager.’
‘True, and you’re mine, so there’s something I’d better tell you about. I had big Bob on the blower last night with steam coming out his ears. Alex has been having funny phone calls at her new flat. He wants us to find out who it is, and tell him not to do it again.’
‘Too right we will,’ McGuire exclaimed. ‘Alex works for Paula and me at the Viareggio Trust, soon to be Viareggio plc. I’m not having some hooligan mess her about. What have you done so far?’
‘I’ve got campers on her phone line and on her mobile: so far the bastard’s withheld his number, but if he calls again she’ll try to keep him on long enough for us to get a fix.’
‘Are you watching her as well?’
‘Discreetly, but we are. She doesn’t know it, though. I’m not too worried. Alex is a strong girl and she can handle herself up to black-belt standard . . . the boss made sure of that when she was growing up . . . but it’s not going to come to that. We’ll pick the caller up, sooner or later.’
‘When you do, don’t interview him without me being there.’
‘Don’t worry, that’s part of the plan. It’ll be just you and me.’
The drive to the crime scene from the police headquarters building took less than five minutes. Swansea Street was lined with cars, apart from an area in front of the victim’s house that had been blocked off by police parking cones. McGuire could have stopped there, but instead he drove round the corner to Anglesey Drive.
As he climbed out of the passenger seat, McIlhenney turned to stare at a car that had just passed them. ‘Hey, Mario, that was the chief,’ he exclaimed.
‘No, surely not. He doesn’t live anywhere near here.’
‘I’m telling you, it was him. He was on his own too; his wife wasn’t with him.’
‘What the hell would Proud Jimmy be doing in Trinity on a Sunday afternoon?’
‘How about checking up on CID?’
‘The big man would just love that, wouldn’t he? If he was, we’ll find out directly.’
The two detectives walked the few yards to the mobile investigation centre. ‘Jesus,’ said McIlhenney, when he saw the big white vehicle. ‘The residents must love this. It’s practically blocking the bloody lane: there’s hardly room for the door to open.’ He trotted up the half-dozen steps with McGuire at his heels and stepped inside.
Detective Sergeant Ray Wilding was at a desk in the middle of the van, with a pile of papers in front of him. He jumped to his feet as the newcomers entered. ‘Sit down, man,’ said McGuire. ‘This isn’t a formal visit.’
‘You haven’t just had the chief constable here, have you?’ asked McIlhenney. The sergeant gazed at him, taken aback by the question, and shook his head. ‘Secret assignation, then.’ The big superintendent chuckled. ‘Where’s DCI Mackenzie?’
‘Not here, sir. He called around ten.’
‘You mean called in?’
‘No, sir, he phoned. He said he was sick and told me to get on with the investigation in his absence.’
‘Are you comfortable with that? You’re just back on the active side after your spell in Dan Pringle’s front office. Have you got enough support here?’
‘I’m all right just now, sir. I’ve got plenty of uniforms to do what needs to be done at this stage, canvassing neighbours for possible sightings and fielding calls about the E-fit as they come in through the hotline.’
‘Have you had many?’
‘A few, but nothing that’s got me excited. There was one bloke called in and said it looks like his window-cleaner, but he doesn’t know what his name is or where he lives. A woman contact said it looked like her daughter’s boyfriend, but when questioned she said that she saw him last night and he had all ten fingers. A pathetic old lady said it reminded her of her grandson: it turned out that he was killed in a motor-bike accident ten years ago. Oh, aye, and a drunk phoned and said it looked like Osama bin Laden. That’s the closest thing to an identification we’ve had, actually. But it can’t be him: he was last seen driving a taxi in New York.’
‘Just about what you’d expect, in other words.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Have you found the murder weapon yet?’
‘We don’t know, sir. There are a few things in the kitchen that look as if they might have done the job, but they’re all clean, or rather Starr’s are the only fingerprints on them. There is one odd thing, though. There’s a full set of kitchen knives in a wooden block, only one of them’s missing; a big one, from the size of the empty slot. But we’ll need to wait for Professor Hutchinson’s post-mortem report before we can take that any further.’
‘Old Joe may need to bring someone in for that. Identifying a weapon from the marks left on a body can be a specialist task.’
‘What about the neighbours?’ asked McGuire.
‘No more productive than the E-fit, I’m afraid. This is a quiet neighbourhood: you don’t find people walking back from the pub at midnight. We’ve had no sightings of anyone entering or leaving the victim’s house.’
‘Okay, Ray, where do you go from here? If it seems that I’m pushing this, it’s because in a way it started on my watch. I was still in Leith when the attempted robbery at Starr’s took place. It’s also because I don’t plan to have any unsolved homicides on my record as head of CID.’
‘Understood, sir. Tomorrow morning I plan to re-interview Big Ming . . . that’s Smith, the board man. I’m also going to talk to his clerk, and his ex-wife. I want to find out everything there is to know about Gary Starr.’
‘Do I take it you’re not keen on the idea that the boy with the missing finger came back with friends?’
‘If he had friends, sir, why did he try to stick up Starr’s place on his own with a plastic gun? There is no commonality between the two events other than amputation. I find it hard to accept that someone who was such a disastrous, half-hearted failure as an armed robber could be involved in something as fucking hard-core brutal as this.’
‘I think I agree with you. Don’t stop with the ex-wife, Ray. Talk to his bank manager;
look into his accounts for money flowing in. Take his house apart, take his shop apart; find out who his associates were, look for cash piles, go through all his books and pin down every penny he had. If you want assistance from specialist officers, you’ve got it.’
‘What about Mr Mackenzie, sir? He’s the senior investigating officer.’
‘He’s not here, Ray,’ McIlhenney intervened. ‘He can’t run a high-profile murder investigation from his sick-bed. Until he’s back, you report to me directly, and when he is back, the inquiry is to be run exactly as we’ve discussed here.’
‘And something else,’ McGuire added. ‘This is just a wild idea,’ he grinned, ‘but since it’s my wild idea, I expect you to bear it in mind. When you’re building up your list of his contacts and associates, keep an eye out for Muslims. Look at what was done to this man: he had both of his hands cut off. What’s the punishment for theft under Sharia law? Amputation.’
‘But not death,’ McIlhenney pointed out.
The new head of CID smiled, wickedly. ‘Maybe they weren’t trying to kill him. Maybe they just didn’t care.’
Nineteen
‘Where’s Lena? She hasn’t made herself scarce to give us a clear field, has she?’
Aileen laughed. ‘No, I wouldn’t ask her to do that. She’s visiting her parents, as it happens: she’ll be back around eight, in time for Monarch of the Glen.’
‘Will she cough loudly and rattle her keys before she comes in?’
‘I’m sure she will, but there won’t be any need, will there?’
‘No, there won’t. Your place is one thing, but here I wouldn’t feel comfortable . . . and at my age, honey, that’s a must. There’s something else too,’ Bob admitted. ‘As long as Sarah’s still here, well, call me inhibited if you will, but it wouldn’t feel right.’
‘I know. If we’re truth-telling, I’m sort of glad that the opportunity’s never presented itself. Call me old fashioned if you will, but I’ve never slept with a man who’s gone home to his wife afterwards, even if they are estranged, and even if they will be divorced in a couple of months.’
He stepped up behind her and slid his arms round her waist, holding her lightly as she cored and sliced peppers. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I’ll make you a promise. Next Easter, the kids should be with Sarah in America, as long as she has somewhere for them to stay by then. I assume that the parliament will be in recess too. If that’s the case, you and I will fly out to my place in Spain, where we will be completely and utterly alone.’
‘A promise, you said? Just the two of us?’
‘Well, apart from your protection officers . . .’
She turned in his embrace, her eyes widening. ‘You’re joking. I won’t have . . .’
He grinned. ‘Not in Spain. I’ll be all the protection you need there.’
‘And here, I hope.’
‘No. We’ve discussed this already: once you’re confirmed in office you should have personal security on an official basis.’
‘Can’t you just do it yourself, when we’re together at least?’
‘I’m talking twenty-four hours a day here. It’s a professional job. Would you want me looking over your shoulder all the time, and never directly at you? Would you feel comfortable, bumping into my Glock in its holster?’
‘You mean they’ll be armed?’
‘We don’t give them catapults, babe. It comes with the territory you’ll be taking over.’
She raised herself up on her toes, kissed him lightly and turned back to the peppers. ‘If it’ll keep you happy,’ she said, ‘I’ll put up with it.’
‘Thanks, it will.’
‘In which case, there’s the matter of keeping me happy in return. Now that you’ve engineered that horrible man Jay’s resignation as the First Minister’s security adviser, there’s a vacancy to be filled. If, and I’ll keep saying “if” till it happens, I do get the leadership, I’d like you to take it on. I don’t mean I want you to give up your present job: it would be part-time, on a consultancy basis.’
‘God, no, love! Please don’t ask me. I’ve done that job already, before the parliament was set up and when the Secretary of State for Scotland was the main man. It didn’t work out well: in fact it ended with me telling him to shove it. What if I gave you some advice that turned out to be wrong? What if I gave you some advice, you didn’t take it, and the situation went sour?’
‘You’d forgive me and I’d forgive you, because we’d each of us know that the other was doing their level best.’
‘Aileen, it’s too close, too personal.’
‘That’s exactly why it’s got to be you.’ She slid the sliced vegetables into a colander, picked up two chicken breasts and laid them on the chopping board. ‘There is nobody in this land that I trust more than you. You agreed to be my counsellor on police matters when I became justice minister, didn’t you?’
‘But this would be different.’
‘No, it wouldn’t. Look at it this way: let’s say that in six months’ time I’m First Minister, you’re divorced, and if we’re not living together, we’re at the very least spending as much time as we can with each other. Suppose I appoint someone else? The first time he gives me advice, I come home and tell you about it and you disagree, bang goes my confidence in that person.’
‘So don’t tell me about it.’
‘Do you mean that? Do you really want me keeping secrets from you?’
He smiled wryly. ‘No, I don’t suppose that’s the ideal basis for any relationship. In that case, appoint Andy Martin, the DCC in Tayside.’
‘You mean the same Andy Martin that was your right-hand man until he moved? And what would he do if I appointed him? Every time something big came up, he’d call you to ask what you thought before he advised me.’
‘Andy’s his own man, I promise you.’
‘He’s also a human being. Look, I wouldn’t be against him touching base with a trusted colleague. My point is that if that trusted colleague is you, you might as well be doing the job yourself, and calling on DCC Martin when you think it necessary. Go on, my darling, do it for me. After all, it’s not as if we’re talking about an appointment that’s going to be public property.’
Bob picked a wok from a hook on the kitchen wall, then poured olive oil, soy sauce and a little balsamic vinegar into it, running them around the surface of the wide pan before putting it on a gas burner. ‘If it’s what you want,’ he said, ‘I’ll do it. But there will be no formal appointment, no consultancy, and absolutely no remuneration: that would be hugely improper, and could bring you down. I’ll be your security adviser, but it’ll be strictly between you and me.’
She kissed him again, for longer this time. ‘Thanks, Bob,’ she murmured. ‘I promise it won’t be a burden to you. As far as privacy is concerned, our friendship is a matter of record, so once people find out, as they will eventually, how close we really are, they’ll assume you’re doing the job anyway.’
Twenty
Bandit Mackenzie had been expecting a phone call from Ray Wilding, updating him on the investigation. What he had not expected was a heavy knock on his front door. He had no doubt that the caller was a police officer, since a civilian would have rung the bell; from the weight of the thump, it was a man.
Cheryl looked at him. ‘Are you not going to answer it?’ she asked.
‘You get it.’
She tutted, but did as he asked: as she left the room he found himself hoping that it was not Mario McGuire who was standing on his doorstep. Neil McIlhenney, he could handle: he was an amiable big bloke, easy to kid, but the new chief superintendent had a touch of the evil about him. He tried not to let his relief show when his wife ushered McIlhenney into the room.
‘How are you feeling, Bandit?’ the superintendent asked, as he took a seat facing him, hearing the door close as Cheryl headed for the kitchen.
‘A bit better now, thanks. I’ve felt the flu coming on for a couple of days:
it just seemed to come to a head this morning.’
‘You do look a bit puffy about the eyes, I have to say. I know the feeling.’
‘Yeah. That was probably why I threw up yesterday.’
‘It happens.’
‘You heard about it? Did that bastard Dorward complain? If he did I’ll have him.’
‘No, he didn’t, so forget it. Arthur’s well out of your reach anyway. There were other people there, including uniforms: that’s probably how the tale got passed on.’
‘As long as it was none of my people. Anyway, after that, the way I felt when I woke up I thought I’d be more use to the investigation advising from a distance than cooped up in the van infecting everyone else.’
‘That’s your call to make. However,’ McIlhenney paused, ‘it’s for me to decide whether the investigation can handle your absence, or whether I need to draft in someone else, or even take over myself. So in the unlikely event of you ever needing another sickie at the start of a major inquiry, I’d be grateful if your first phone call is to me. Fair enough?’
Mackenzie nodded. ‘Point taken: sorry, sir.’
‘Are you taking the piss, Bandit? What’s with the “sir”? I was Neil a week ago and I still am.’
‘That’s good to hear. You can never be sure how a friend’s going to handle promotion: I’ve seen some let it go right to their head. So, have you drafted someone in?’
‘Not yet. Will you be fit tomorrow?’
‘I reckon so.’
‘Then I won’t; Ray Wilding’s handled things fine today in your absence. We’re no nearer a solution, but Ray’s got a plan for taking things forward, and I want you to run with it. He’s a good cop. I’m sure the two of you are going to get along.’
‘I’m sure we are,’ said Mackenzie, in not quite the correct tone.
McIlhenney looked at him. ‘Bandit, are you all right? I don’t mean the flu, I mean are you all right about the job just now?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Could you still be thinking about that thing you and I were involved in? I know you’ve had counselling from O’Malley, same as I have, and I know that he gave you a clean bill of psychological health, but that was a pretty hairy night.’
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